John 7:37-44 Streams of Living Water

Last week we talked with the prophet Amos about his picture of justice rolling like a river. This river brings new life into communities, families and individuals, helping them see God in their lives. This week we’re stopping by the Feast of Tabernacles where Jesus offers a similar picture of a river of living water bringing new life and hope into our world and the lives of people that we know and live with. It’s not uncommon for people to tell me that they feel dry inside; a number of people have described their lives being like walking in a desert place. They’re looking for this living water that Jesus is talking about here.

Jesus picks up on the invitation found in Isaiah 55:1-2, “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare.” It’s part of our nature to try to provide for ourselves, to not rely on anyone else, even if that someone’s God. Yet life throws us so many curve balls, so many changes in the journeys we’re on; there are times when tiredness and discouragement creep in and take away our strength and energy. Talking with a few pastors this week online, a number of them mentioned how, now that in-person services are slowly starting again, that exhaustion and depression is settling in as they bring others back into the decision making and hand over responsibilities again to the various ministry leaders. They’ve been working on adrenaline for months now and now are crashing. They’re dry, they’re thirsty, even if they don’t realize it. What life events or times drain you? Where do you go to be refreshed?

In Matthew 11, Jesus offers a direct invitation to come and rest and be renewed, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” It’s the same message as Psalm 23 where the shepherd leads his sheep to quiet waters and lush meadows. Now, at this harvest feast, where the people are celebrating God’s generous and abundant providing, Jesus uses the symbols of the feast to reveal himself as the promised Messiah, the one who has come to save his people.

The priests pour water from an underground stream that fills the Pool of Siloam over the altar. This pointed to a number of Old Testament passages: Joel 3:18, “In that day the mountains will drip new wine, and the hills will flow with milk; all the ravines of Judah will run with water. A fountain will flow out of the Lord’s house and will water the valley of acacias.”  Isaiah 44:3, ^“For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants.” These verses point to the coming Messiah and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit over the people.

Pointing to the water and other symbols surrounding the feast, Jesus stands and declares in a loud voice so everyone can hear, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” Mitch Glaser, in Jewish Voice Today writes that Jesus is saying, “I am the reality that the water in this ceremony symbolizes—the true life-giver through who the Holy Spirit is also given.” We hear echoes from Ezekiel 36, “‘For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” Jesus knows that the people at the feast know these passages from the prophets, that they get it, that’s what they’re looking for: hope, refreshed hearts and souls. They’ve been slaves under Babylon and now they’re under Rome’s power; they just want to be free.

Rivers flow. They stop being rivers when they start collecting in one spot, becoming ponds, lakes or seas. The water doesn’t go any further. Think of the rivers that Jesus’ listeners would be thinking about: the great Nile and Euphrates rivers that nourish the lands they flow through, the Jordan River that provides life to the land as it flows from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea. The soil of the Nile River delta between Cairo and the Mediterranean Sea is rich in nutrients because of the large silt deposits the Nile leaves behind as it flows into the sea. The banks of the Nile all along its vast length contain rich soil, thanks to annual flooding that deposits silt. From space, the contrast between the Nile's lush green river banks and the barren desert makes it clear how important rivers are to the land and how much it impacts the people all along its length.

Jesus doesn’t say “pools of living water,” he says rivers of living water will flow from within us. Living waters are not meant to stay in us, it’s meant to flow into the world around us. It reminds me of the Samaritan woman Jesus meets at the well, the woman whose life was filled with questionable choices. When offered living water from Jesus, she rushes back to the village to tell them about Jesus, to allow the living water offered by Jesus to flow through her and into the village people so they can also experience the new life and hope that Jesus brings.

Jesus came to take the punishment for our sin on himself, but also to bring new life and reconciliation with God. In the resurrection we’re reassured of new life. We no longer are seen as sinners in the hand of an angry God, as the preacher Jonathan Edwards wrote, we can rest in knowing that we are created in the image of God: children of God, masterpieces created by God. Seeing ourselves through God’s eyes can bring soul healing knowing that God’s with us through the Holy Spirit, he’ll carry us through life, especially when life is hard and painful. His living water helps us accept that our past has made us who we are today, for better or worse, but that the living water of the Holy Spirit will also shape our future, allowing us to look forward with hope and peace.

Living water needs to keep flowing. It flows from Jesus through the Holy Spirit into us, and then out of us into the community we are a part of. The Samaritan woman is an example of how Jesus’ living water flowed through her into her village. But how does that story of a woman from a completely different time and place work here? It begins with something as simple as coming here to worship on Sunday. Why do you come? Is it to worship God because it strengthens your faith, makes you feel good, it fills you with joy, it’s the right thing to do, or do you come to worship so that you can take what you have learned and experienced in worship with your boss, your employees, your co-workers, fellow students, neighbours, and friends? Both and?

In Africa, when I preached there, people had their heads down because they were busy taking notes so they could share what they learned at work, with their neighbours and friends. A fellow pastor in Montreal connected with me a couple of weeks because of a joint ministry we were both involved with. 3 people we know have stepped up in really cool ways. One person, a nurse has started a small group ministry of compassion and listening for other nurses where she is able to speak Jesus and hope into their lives and jobs. Two other people. they both own their own businesses; one has begun a lunch time Bible study for his employees while the second has an evening Bible study for their employee’s whole families around a meal.

We’ve begun live-streaming our worship services. What an opportunity to start a small house church in your home by inviting a couple of friends, a neighbour family, someone you’ve wanted to talk to about Jesus over to join you Sunday morning over brunch. As a church we need to look at how we can support you in being living water in a way like this. The thing is that we begin thinking like rivers instead of still ponds. Who can you flow into with the love of Jesus?

 

Amos 5:18-27 Let Justice Roll on Like a River

 

I appreciate the book of Amos; it challenges me as a person. Amos goes to a people who’ve drifted a long way from God and don’t even recognize it. God calls the shepherd Amos to go to the peoples of Israel and Judah and call them to repent and return to him, focusing mostly on Israel even though Amos comes from the southern country of Judah. As a shepherd, people are not likely to listen to Amos or respect him because he’s just a shepherd.

Amos calls down judgement against Israel and Judah’s enemies first. The Jewish people love this part, especially since many of their enemies are old family from the lines of Lot and Esau who have become nations too, the Ammonites, Moabites, and Edomites. Family fights are the worst, just look at our own church history. But then Amos gets personal and talks straight to Israel and Judah, one family that split after King Solomon’s death into two peoples who have a real love-hate relationship with each other; read the books of 1^st and 2^nd Kings for those stories.

Judah is charged with rejecting God’s law and following after other gods. It seems that Israel’s God isn’t very appealing to his own people. Then Amos lays into Israel and he’s not gentle with them. Amos 2:6–8, ^“This is what the Lord says: “For three sins of Israel, even for four, I will not relent. They sell the innocent for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals. They trample on the heads of the poor as on the dust of the ground and deny justice to the oppressed. Father and son use the same girl and so profane my holy name. They lie down beside every altar on garments taken in pledge. In the house of their god they drink wine taken as fines.” They’ve become so involved with building their own kingdoms that they’ve forgotten God’s kingdom. The people, for the most part, have turned their back on God and on their most vulnerable members.

God’s angry because his law was given to protect the poor, the vulnerable and the needy and to shape the people’s hearts so that justice, compassion and humility and love for God and their neighbours would become the core of their character. That hasn’t happened, so now God calls them out on it. Instead of building God’s kingdom as his people, they’ve been building their own little kingdoms and stepping all over people to get what they want with no consideration for others. Instead of loving God and neighbour, they’re chasing after wealth, power, and pleasure at the expense of those who are weaker or poorer. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer and everyone does what they want; kind of sounds familiar, doesn’t it. The people have forgotten that God’s a righteous and just God; he’s not going to stand for this.

Jesus comes to satisfy God’s justice. At the beginning before Adam and Eve sinned, they were told that the penalty for sin was death, but to cover all the sin in the world from Adam and Eve’s time until Jesus’ return, the only death that would satisfy God’s justice needed to be fully God, but also fully human, in other words, Jesus. Because God’s not only just, but also merciful, Jesus comes, and through Jesus’ death the penalty is paid, and through his resurrection we receive new life through repentance. Jesus comes not just for our sin, but to bring new life and establish a new kingdom; the kingdom of heaven.

Amos calls the people to repent and return to God, Amos 5:4–5, “This is what the Lord says to Israel: “Seek me and live; do not seek Bethel, do not go to Gilgal, do not journey to Beersheba. For Gilgal will surely go into exile, and Bethel will be reduced to nothing.” God wants us to return to him. But we’re so used to thinking that everything’s good between us and God and every once in while we need a wake-up call, like Israel, to take a closer look at our hearts and lives to see where our loyalties and worship really lie. Amos now points to the day of the Lord, the coming if the Messiah, telling them, don’t be so keen on the Lord coming, “Why do you long for the day of the Lord? That day will be darkness, not light.” The people are looking for a powerful king to come and save them and allow them to continue to live their self-centered lives, not for someone like Jesus.

The people are doing the religious requirements outwardly, but their hearts are hard and their lives are about their wants and rights instead of caring and loving others. Not much different today where the constant call is to want to have things “my way” and never mind about the “other” person. People quickly cry about “my rights” instead of “my responsibilities” today over even small things like wearing a mask in a store to make others feel safe. Sacrificing a little for others is hard for some. God looks at our hearts; our religious acts aren’t so important to him. Amos’ statement that God “hates, despises your religious festivals; your assemblies are a stench to me. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for the. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps.” This freaks the people out! How can God be so harsh to them!

God wants justice and righteousness to be part of our character, part of who we are as his people. God’s ticked at his people for the injustice that has become so normal, he’s angry that there’s not more outrage at how their society has gone so wrong. Desmond Tutu writes, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.” James, the brother of Jesus, explains it a little differently, “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.”

Injustice is still very much alive in our country and communities. This is why there are so many marches around racism, 3 of my children are First Nations and there’s little to no action on addressing the missing and murdered indigenous women cases. This could have been my daughters. Lots of fine sounding words, little done. Our Korean brothers and sisters in Red Deer who are joining the CRC have talked about how badly many of them have been treated because of the language around COVID. Words matter, lack of compassion and recognizing the image of God is others matters. Poverty, abortion, end of life, and so many other justice issues surround us.

God put his laws in place so that justice would roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream. If you’ve ever sat on the bank of a river or stream where it goes around a bend, you can see how the river slowly carves away at the land to find its way to the sea. It doesn’t do it quickly, but over time it shapes the landscape. As followers of Jesus, we’re called to do justice, to make it a natural part of who we are as a church and as individuals. Like a river, we slowly and consistently eat away at the banks of injustice and selfishness. We stand with those seeking justice, we work together to create places where people are supported by others who love them and are willing to invest their lives in helping them flourish and become who God has created them to be. We work to create places of healing and hope for our community, being a people of blessing who allow God’s blessings to flow through us into our community so it can gain a glimpse of God. This is why James emphasizes that how we live is an expression of what we believe.

Justice is about grace and mercy for those who have suffered from injustice. When someone who has suffered from injustice sees someone who cares about the injustice they are living in, when they experience the love of neighbour that comes from our fighting for justice in our society, they see Jesus’ heart, they see a people shaped by Jesus. Jesus says that how we live out our faith is important, ^“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’… “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’”

May our hearts be shaped by Jesus and the Spirit as God uses us to shape our community for his kingdom.